My semester in Dakar

suukar

Everyone in Senegal seems to love sugar. This obsession may be the cause of the high risk of diabetes here. Sugar is inescapable—people put five cubes of sugar into their morning coffee, and a shot glass worth of sugar into a pot of the traditional tea, àttaya. The little babies in my house always seem to be munching on candy—lollipops and chewing gum. On the street, we buy beignets from a lady we’ve come to know—she rolls the hot fried balls of dough in the white, sweet powder. Chocolate spread is smeared on the bread for breakfast and dumped into the Sunday night porridge meal. A bottle of fruit juice can be sickeningly sugary. I’m certainly having a sweet time studying abroad!